


somnium vidisse se dicat in extremis orbis terrarum

by armethaumaturgy



Category: Elsword (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate universe - Dream Sci-Fi, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Doppelganger, Dream Sharing, Dream hopping, Established Relationship, Illustrations, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Technical Jargon, as a plot device, body swapping, exploring dream mechanics, getting stuck in a dream, many of them in fact
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:55:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25489612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armethaumaturgy/pseuds/armethaumaturgy
Summary: Being the best in the industry had its perks. Herrscher's name was known far and wide, work offers coming in left and right, extort this, extort that. But that still didn't stop his boyfriend from getting too tangled up in one of his dreams and switching places with the shade in his head. The shade that he had offered to extort ages ago.Fuck, this is a mess.
Relationships: Elsword/Edward "Add" Grenore/Ainchase Ishmael
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. the fall

**Author's Note:**

> its 2020 and this year pushed me to do some things im not proud of. like another els fic. o7

Opening his eyes after hours of being hooked up to an [ADSSU](.) always felt like coming up for a breath after diving. The cotton feeling at the back on his tongue and the pounding headache developing behind his eyes did nothing to make the process any easier, no matter how often he delved into the craft.

Waving off the help of the hired technician and physician, he thumbed off the adhesive connecting him to the vitals reading machine and pulled the needle of the IV out of his arm none too gently. He handed it off to the physician, palm up because he had manners, who proceeded to disconnect and throw it out, doing his job of sterilizing the unit for the next use.

By now, his arm looked like an avid drug user’s, and he felt like one as well, with the somnicin levels in his blood well over the recommended dose. Thankfully, that would fix itself within the next hour, and so would, he hoped, the headache.

Next to himself, he could see Herrsch giving the equipment and technicians similar treatment, rolling his shoulders. Herrsch looked over, giving him a smile. Asshole, he never dealt with headaches.

Dox, at one point, joked about him having nothing in that pretty head of his, back before they’d dreamed together. Oh, how wrong he had been, how vast the worlds in Herrsch’s head were.

The dreamer of their latest job was waking up as well, the only person in the room to let himself be treated and checked. 

Dox pulled out his phone from the pocket of his jeans, noting an absence in notifications, but a missed call.

“Immo called,” he mused, thumbing the lock screen away. “Gonna ring back.”

Herrsch gave a nod, eyes tracking him as he got up, shook off the drugs making him drowsy and made his way to the corner of the room to call. Instead, he focused on the dreamer, when all the equipment was removed and the man rubbed at his temples.

The man noticed him, offering a wobbly smile. Extraction jobs always left the subject the most rattled, though they helped in the long run. He couldn’t speak from his own experience, not like anyone has ever run an extraction on him. He wasn’t sure if it were possible at this point anymore.

A thing to ponder later. 

The low hum in the room ceased as the technician powered the ADSSU down, all screens of connected computers and machines fading to black and leaving the room in only the dim light from the overhead lamps.

He looked over to Dox just in time to see his face blanch, brows knitting themselves together like they never expected to be apart again. Herrsch’s followed suit. Not much could phase Dox to that degree.

“You’re fucking with me,” he forced out, barely above a whisper. “Please say you’re fucking with me.”

Whatever he heard obviously didn’t indicate Immo was fucking with him. Herrsch didn’t think he could get any paler with his complexion, but he was proved wrong when Dox turned the same shade as the wall behind him.

“I— We’ll be— We’ll get the earliest flight, fuck, okay. Don’t… don’t go to sleep.” Dox pulled the phone away from his ear to check the clock. “It’ll be like— three? Four? Hours. Fuck,  **don’t** go to sleep. Please.” A pause. “There are Monsters in the pantry. I don’t care if you drink all of them, please just don’t go to sleep.” Another pause. “Yeah. Yeah.”

The call ended with Dox’s arm going slack, falling down to his side, Immo’s photo bright on the screen before it turned itself off. 

Before Herrsch could open his mouth, utter a single sound, Dox turned to him and pointed with his chin towards the door. Obediently, Herrsch nodded, standing from the dream chair and leading the way. He had to hold the door open for Dox, who couldn’t seem to stop shaking.

As soon as it was closed, he turned to him, hand in his hair, and raked his fingers through the long strands in an attempt to calm him. “What was that about?”

Dox opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, leaned into his touch, closed it again, and let out the shakiest breath Herrsch had heard outside of a panic attack. “Immo…” he whispered, barely audible. “He… He dreamed himself too deep and— somehow, he ended up switching places with Conwell.”

Panic seized Herrsch’s chest, squeezing until he felt he couldn’t breathe.

“So, that was…”

“Mm-hm.”

“Can you get us the earliest flight back?” 

Dox just nodded, already on it, tapping away at his phone with shaky fingers. Herrsch squeezed him against his side for one short moment before rushing back into the room to grab their bags.

* * *

Herrsch’s jeep screeched as they parked, tire tracks blooming on their driveway, and the engine wasn’t even fully off before Dox was wrestling with his seatbelt and jumping out of the car.

The front door opened to reveal Queen, with hair askew and a look of an old woman plastered on her youthful face. Just by looking, Dox knew— he knew it wasn’t a joke, wasn’t a ploy to get them to come early, but he had to— he had to check for himself.

Ducking under her arm was no problem even given their heights. He knew their house like the back of his hand, found Immo in the living room, sitting cross legged on the floor with an Xbox controller in his hand and some game on the screen. He was obviously losing, if his annoyed expression was any way of knowing, and even that blasted the alarm sirens in his brain. 

Immo was good at video games.

Empty energy drink cans littered the floor around him, ten, fifteen, twenty-six. Jesus Christ.

“H-hey,” he said, pulling Immo’s — Conwell’s — attention away from the screen. There were bags under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept in  _ days  _ instead of hours. 

“Thank goodness you’re here,” Immo’s mouth said, and Dox focused on that for some reason, the way his lips moved, the words they shaped, sounding for all the world like nothing Immo would ever say. 

Herrsch and Queen talked in the hallway, but he couldn’t make out about what, rooted to the spot. Tears welled in his eyes because —  **_fuck!_ ** — he knew what it was like, getting tricked by a shade in a dream and not wake up for days. His legs didn’t feel like his as he crossed the carpet in the living room, offering Conwell one of his hands to pull him up. 

The smile he got as a reward bordered the uncanny valley. Conwell didn’t know how to move Immo’s body like Immo, instead looking like a passable double. For one single, terrifying instant, Dox was worried it was  _ him  _ that was stuck in a dream, one that was imminent for crumbling.

“C’mon,” he choked, refusing to let Conwell see him cry, “Let’s tuck you in.”

Dox lead Conwell downstairs, only stopping to tell Herrsch and Queen that they’d be in the lab, that he’d— keep Conwell stable until Herrsch figured out a way to do an extraction right. Just wake me up when you need me. I’ll keep the dream stable.

Herrsch nodded, his immaculately schooled features betraying all his worry and fears, if only to Dox. It wasn’t a good look on him.

The lab was dark, quiet save the ever-running ventilation keeping the basement breathable. Dox’s fingers found the lightswitch and he went through the motions of turning the ADSSU and all its equipment on, watching with blank eyes at the flat lines and numbers.

“Sit down,” he said, then added a soft, “please.”

Conwell obliged. Dox knew it wasn’t his fault. Logically, he knew Conwell didn’t like this either. He had already had his life, and becoming a dream shade attached to a memento Immo got his hands on and practically possessing the boy wasn’t for the purpose of stealing his body. It didn’t mean Dox wasn’t mad. It didn’t mean he wasn’t considering messaging the board of Dreamers to standardize checks on mementos.

Which is why he tried his hardest not to look at his face, the unnatural, fake smile on his boyfriend’s lips, as he held Conwell’s arm above the elbow. His hand shook, but as soon as he had opened a fresh needle and attached it to the drip of the IV, it stopped. 

He located the vein he knew by heart now, wiping the area with an alcohol wipe and puncturing the skin until he was sure the needle wouldn’t come loose. A strip of medical tape to hold it in place never hurt anyone, either.

He attached the vitals machine with similar detachedness, but didn’t let the IV drip just yet.

“Herrsch,” he called up the stairs, and it was only moments before he appeared, that knowing look on his face. He placed a hand on Dox’s cheek. He cradled it, because it couldn’t be called anything else, and led him to one of the other dream chairs. 

Conwell averted his eyes as Herrsch leaned down, placed a kiss on Dox’s forehead. It had been different to watch such interactions in dreams, through Immo’s eyes. Now he felt like nothing but a voyeur. 

The IV was attached to Dox’s arm for the second time that day, and so were the vitals, and Herrsch turned the IV on immediately, watching the somnicin make its way to Dox’s arm. He felt terrible about the dosage, but there was no way Dox was staying asleep if he didn’t up it.

Dox didn’t make a single comment on it, however, just looked at Herrsch with determination that screamed ‘I’ll do my best.’

Herrsch knew why Dox wanted to do this. Herrsch’s name held more power in the industry, and he was better at talking to people, if only marginally. Dox’s dreams weren’t stable, not most of the time, but in the first layer, it would be more than enough to hold them both for the few hours Herrsch had to think of  _ something _ . 

Dox’s eyes fluttered closed and the vitals machine evened out as he fell asleep, the tenseness falling off his features momentarily. Herrsch moved to Conwell, turning his IV on as well.

“Don’t do anything shady,” Herrsch warned, looking straight into Conwell’s eyes.

Conwell laughed, voice Immo’s but not  _ like _ Immo. He wasn’t so stupid to try anything, and even if neither Dox nor Herrsch believed it, he cared about Immo as well.

And he knew a threat when he heard one.


	2. the hunt

Dox opened his eyes with a grunt. He had fallen asleep again, and judging by the harsh glare of the sun above, his shoulders would get sunburnt. He rolled over, throwing a hand over his eyes and lounging on the picnic blanket for a few more moments.

"Hello."

He damn near jumped out of his skin, not expecting anyone to be here with him. Scrambling, he sat up and looked over to Immo sitting on the other side of the blanket, cross legged. The picnic basket sat untouched next to him.

With another grunt, Dox smiled at him, wiping the crust from his eyes with the back of his hand. The other hand reached into his pocket, to find his phone and see whether they had to leave soon. Sure, the sun was hot and the air humid, but it still felt nice next to the trees.

Instead of his phone, his fingers curled around something small in his pocket. Frowning, he pulls it out.

It turned out to be a small figure of a cat, one of those toy lines that kids had been all over when he was in middle school. It was scuffed, scratched and with peeling paint in some spots, and with a crudely drawn bow on its head in sharpie. Immo had thought it would be a good prank, and got an earful and then the silent treatment for a whole week after Dox learned it was him who did it.

He’d been so mad, his only keepsake of mo—

**_Wait_ ** .

He looked at Immo again, and his smiling face was no longer there, in his place sitting Conwell, with all his wrinkles and heavy eyes. Dox breathed a small breath of relief. He was dreaming.

He stood up, patting the invisible dust off his jacket, and stepped onto the grass. It turned to ash and heavy, dark stone under his soles, bleeding through the rest of the grass. It turned back as soon as he lifted the foot, and bled away when he put it down again.

Okay, so the dream wasn’t the stablest, but it would do for now.

Looking down at his hand, he wondered how he could even think it wasn’t a dream. His fingers were too short, the skin softer than it had been in years. The weight of his long hair was gone from his scalp.

Aware of not being real, the dream shaped itself around them. Trees blended away, replaced by glowing neon cubes, merrily making their slow way around them. If touched, Dox knew they would feel soft and malleable. The grass turned from vibrant green to a dull, dark blue. 

"That's more like it," Conwell said, looking up at the night sky. "I have not been in your dream in a long time. It is always a marvel."

Dox scoffed. "Well, that's good at least, because we'll be stuck here for a while." He never was the best dream architect. Sure, he could make a specific dreamscape if he put his mind to it, planned it out and all, but his dreams defaulted to this night plane with nothing but some cubes floating around. If they walked in a direction long enough, they’d find some broken down industrial complexes, but little more. The short glimpse at the beginning was all that was left of his original dreams, before Herrsch decided he was too dangerous to himself in dreamscapes with a shade in his head and offered to extract it.

He shook his head.

Not the time to delve so deep.

With a flick of a wrist, his phone materialized out of thin air. Looking at its screen made his head hurt, letters flying all over the place, illegible, but at the least the analog clock in the middle of the screen was always readable. It read 3:47 right now, but he knew if he looked at it in a second it could still say 3:47, or it could jump over to like 10:10. 

Such was the flow of time in dreams, always unpredictable, always janky, even with his powers over it, powers that came in handy more often than he was comfortable with.

He trained his eyes onto Conwell, watchful over the shade as he started to manifest blades, sticking each into the soil in a neat line, adding a new element to the dream. Dox looked at the phone screen again. 2:13.

He hoped Herrsch would figure something out before this dream collapsed on itself.

* * *

**_Crack_ ** .

Herrsch suppressed his wince at the loud noise. This had been the fourth time Queen had punched the wall. Two of those punches had left indents in the plaster, but he refrained from commenting. When his call connected to naught but a voicemail again, he felt the very same urge.

He'd already gotten ahold of Centurion and Sariel, and Shakti came along with Queen, though she had remained out of the way until now, only deeming it unbothersome to come and try to calm her wife down.

He racked his brain for a plan, pushing all budding symptoms of a panic attack to the back of his mind.

Dox and Conwell were in the first layer right now. It was unlikely Immo had dreamed himself past layer two. To achieve a switch like Queen explained (like Conwell told her), they'd need to dream themselves to layer three. When Immo awoke and got himself trapped, believing he was awake, they must've been bumped up to layer two, and Conwell then up to layer one, knowing they were asleep. He knows Immo. He wouldn't mistake layer one for reality, surely. And when Immo's body awoke for real, it had been Conwell inside it, finding himself on the surface.

Sure, it sounded logical and neat when he broke it down like that, but it did little to quell any of his feelings. He could repeat it aloud, but he knew exactly with which inflection Queen would tell him to go fuck himself. So he didn't.

The fact that Nova was not picking up his calls was only making his panic worse. They'd need a bigger team to try and do an extraction on such a situation. A skilled physician, knowing the dosages for each layer and how to alter them on the fly, a technician to keep watch, at the very least two skilled architects to anchor on layer one and two, more of them to alter Immo's dream just enough for him to realize he was dreaming. Maybe another one to anchor layer three, just in case. He could act as the extractor himself, Dox could be the layering watcher, but they'd still need more people, to make sure the dream didn't collapse. 

God, they'd need at the very least ten people. But he didn't want to take any chances, this was Immo's mind on the line here, and he wasn't about to chance anything going wrong.

"Mm, hello?"

"Thank god, Centurion," he breathed, when the monotone beeping of his phone stopped. "Please, I need a favor."

"A favor? C'mon, buddy, do you really think I wouldn't help out? It's not like I'm gonna hold anything out for you, you know I don't mind—"

"Immo is trapped in a dream."

Centurion fell silent, his usual tirade of 'not doing favors. just helping out!' stopping in its tracks. "I… can be at your place in twenty, you can uh… tell me the details then," he said, when the silence started dragging on into the uncomfortable levels. 

"I'd appreciate that. Thank you, Chung."

He didn't mention the casual slip of his real name, but he didn't drop the call either. "Want me to bring my ADSSU? Actually, nevermind, I'll— I'll bring what's needed."

Herrsch nodded, shook his head, slapped himself because this wasn't a damn video call, and said a quiet "Thank you."

And just like that, he was back to being redirected to voicemails, until his phone rang and he eagerly picked up, pressing it against his shoulder. His hands were too preoccupied opening the door for Centurion, who had managed a record time of under ten minutes to pack up and drive down.

"Nova? I've been trying to reach you forever, I need you to come over, Immo has—"

"Mr. Herrscher? Good afternoon, this is—"

Herrsch's face fell. Centurion shot him a knowing look and placed a hand onto his shoulder for but a moment. Enough to convey his own feelings.  _ I'm here. We're going to do this, and do it right. Don't worry _ . "I'm a little preoccupied at the moment. If you need anything, send a message through the website."

He didn't wait for a response, just swiped the call away in favor of dialing Nova again. Nothing but voicemail, over and over. He was really starting to panic now.

Sure, he believed in himself, knew he could pull Immo out on his own, but his emotions were all over the place at the moment and not having a backup was simply asking for trouble and there weren't many extractors Herrsch worked with and trusted as much as Nova. The thought of screwing this up, of losing Immo forever was making bile rise to the back of his throat.

When the doorbell rang, he damn near jumped three feet in the air, scrambling not to drop his phone and open the door simultaneously. This time it was Sariel, with Morphy in tow, looking as if they both walked off the cover of a magazine. And maybe they had. It wasn't unusual for Morphy to enlist Sariel as her co-architect, to stabilize her dreams for public viewings.

"Fuck," Herrsch said, a wobbly smile lifting his lips. "Thank you. And thank you for bringing Morphy."

"No point losing two of our best at once," Sariel said, completely ignoring him and squeezing past, sauntering in like she owned the place. Morphy, on the other hand, wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him with strength that her thin arms betrayed.

"Sariel doesn't mean it like that," she promised. "It'll be okay."

He nodded. "I know. It's good to have you. You're a great architect."

There was a slight dusting of pink across her cheeks, and she puffed up like a peacock when she let him go. "Excuse you. I'm the best architect, thank you very much."

And though he felt nothing like laughing, a chuckle bubbled up from his throat, half-hysterical. "Of course. My apologies."

"Accepted. Now, where is your fridge? I'm parched."

He led Morphy to the kitchen, where he let her help herself to juice and rummage the pantry, and then he wasn't paying attention because another van parked itself next to Centurion's in their rapidly shrinking driveway. With his heart hammering, he was just in time to open the door and see Nova, just the sight of him making Herrsch's insides settle the barest amount. 

"I thought—"

Nova held up his phone, showing off a notification for thirty-seven missed calls. God, Herrsch didn't even realize he'd called that many times. Fuck.

"Sariel called first. I was… too busy to pick up." He nodded his head at the van, and as if on cue, the other people inside spilled out, Iblis, Anular and Prime. Doing quick maths in his head, Herrsch realized they now had a viable team.

Unsure of what to say, he placed a hand onto Nova's prosthetic shoulder, hoping that he'd be able to read the gratitude on Herrsch's face. Nova pulled him into an actual hug instead; he'd lost track of how much physical contact he'd had today, already much more than the previous couple months combined, but he didn't care.

"No wallowing. Let's set up."

"Yes."

They piled in, Iblis' chatter background noise, only to find the rest of people, sans Centurion and Shakti, waiting in the living room. But now, with Laby sitting on the back of the couch and held in place by Twilight's hands securely on her ankles to prevent falls.

"Hi Herrsch! Laby let herself in through the back!" she told him, a smile splitting her face, "I want to help! Pretty please?"

Herrsch could only nod, mind racing ninety in a fifty. He now had a team. A  _ viable _ team. It was time to come up with a plan that wasn't a jumbled mess even in his own brain.


	3. the collapse

Herrsch stood with his back to the group, scribbling onto the whiteboard that he'd pulled out. Because what good lab didn't have a whiteboard on hand? He’d felt bad about erasing Dox’s latest theory, but… well.

"Morphy, you will be our anchor in layer one," he said. She was the most experienced architect of them all, maybe save Sariel, but he needed Sariel inside the dream itself. "Do you have a stable dreamscape on hand?"

Morphy laughed, like twinkling bells, though her eyes were set and determined. "When do I not? I think you'll like it, I was in the middle of showing it off before I was so crudely taken away from my exposeé."

If he didn't know she was joking, Herrsch would have felt bad.

"Glad to hear it. You will keep Conwell as a failsafe, in case anyone needs to be booted." Hopefully they wouldn't. Hope was all he had. "Immo is already anchored in layer two. He… shouldn't be on layer three. We will recon, Laby, you will be the anchor in layer two if he's not there. Otherwise, you are anchoring layer three."

Laby kicked out with a leg, throwing her arms up into the air. Twilight barely held her stable. "Laby will tell Nisha, we will be the best anchor! Pinky promise!"

And because Herrsch wasn't an asshole, he held out his own pinky to twine with hers. The brilliant smile he got as a reward was almost enough to convince him everything was fine.

"Nova, me and you will act as the extractors. Queen and… Iblis and Anular will stabilize the dream if it starts falling apart. Sariel and Prime will be the inside architects. Make sure not to alter too much."

He got a couple nods back. He wasn't used to being the one in charge of large operations, that had usually been either Immo or Nova, back when they had all been part of the [DDTP](.). It made him grateful that he knew these people, knew their ins and outs, what made them tick. Dreaming with more than four people made things imbalanced, so much more prone to going awry.

But they've worked together before.

"Centurion, Shakti, you're on outside duty. Do what you know best."

"You flatterer," Shakti laughed, and he didn't miss the pointed look Queen shot him, or the way Shakti reached over to wind an arm around her shoulders.

"Dox will be our layering overwatch. We can pull him out when Morphy establishes her anchor.” 

He turned to the whiteboard. Now, how the hell does he explain his mess of a timeline and arrows going anywhere in something of a comprehensible fashion?

"Laby was thinking." All eyes turned to the girl. She was lucky Twilight didn't seem to mind her kicking, because the way her legs swung was almost violent at this point. "Now that we are a team again, shouldn't we have a name? Like um… the Els search party!"

"Laby," Prime started softly, "we aren't… looking for El— Immo. We are just going to grab him."

"But Herrsch _just_ said he didn't know if Els was on the second or third layer! That makes us a search party! And ‘Immo search party’ doesn’t roll off the tongue!"

"La—"

"That's fine," Herrsch said, shaking his head in the general direction of Prime. “Would you like to be called the Els search party, Laby?”

“Yes!”

* * *

“The dream is crumbling,” Conwell pointed out, watching one of the floating cubes jerk in mid-air, stutter, and fall to the ground where it crumbled into sparkling dust.

Dox made a noncommittal noise, fingers gripping the edge of the cube he sat on, bobbing gently up and down. It still seemed solid enough. “I was never the best choice for an anchor. If it comes too close, I will have to boot us.”

“Would it not be easier to rewind the dream itself?”

“No, rewinding at this point would just speed up the process.”

Conwell hummed in acquiescence, turning back to his cube-watching. Maybe it would have been better to let Shakti hold him until they were ready. Her dream at least had people in them, constructs to populate it. Here, they only had the cubes, and each other. And Dox was about as good a conversation partner as one of the mute cubes, if he were honest, which he wasn’t, thank you very much.

Dox had spent much of his time in this place. If he were alone, the dream wouldn’t crumble, or at the very least, it would take much longer for it to start. Hopping from layer to layer of the same dream somehow made it more stable. Dox had a few hypotheses for why that was, but nothing concrete yet.

He looked down at his phone. Notifications littered the screen, constantly moving to and fro, still unreadable, but the time now read 91:67. Yes, it seemed the dream was truly collapsing in on itself, if even the analog clock turned into a digital and read something like that. 

The time was running out.

"Well, the grass isn't getting any greener," he mumbled, looking down at the decidedly blue grass. "Let me boot us ou—"

He didn't get the chance to finish his sentence. An earthquake shook the ground under them; his cube decided to give out and tumble to the ground, shattering under him and leaving Dox to sprawl on stone, because of course it would bleed through the grass right then. Of course.

At least he wouldn't carry any bruises out of the dream.

“It seems we are just in time.”

Dox looked up to see Herrsch standing in the middle of the endless field, offering a hand that he graciously took to pull himself up. “Everything set up?”

“Thankfully.” Herrsch hesitated for but a moment. “The whole of DDT team came together.”

Dox’s brows did an impressive dance as bewilderment, gratitude, enlightenment, annoyance and resignation flashed across his features. “Even her?”

“Yes. She will just be a backup architect, to keep Immo’s dream from, well…” Herrsch looked around at all the falling cubes, like oversized comets crashing to the ground.

Dox scoffed. “Point taken. I had just hoped not to work with Sariel again.”

Dox’s old crush on Sariel was no secret to anyone, and neither was the borderline-rude way she turned him down and the unspoken animosity between them. “It’s for Immo,” was all Herrsch could say, and it seemed to simultaneously placate and frustrate Dox further.

“I know, I know! Let’s get it over with.”

Herrsch didn’t expect the way Dox’s foot shot out to kick his ankle out, even though he should have. He didn’t have enough time to make a peep before he crashed to the ground and woke up.

Dox turned to Conwell, who was pointedly pretending not to look their way. Dox’s lips curled up.

“Time to go, old man. Want me to trip you, too?”

Conwell mirrored his smile, somber. “No, that won’t be necessary.”

Dox’s smile stayed as a cube changed its trajectory of fall and crashed so close behind Conwell it made his cloak billow. The shade jumped, turned his head halfway, and then he was gone.

Left alone in his dream, Dox spent a minute more watching as it repaired itself, cubes righting themselves, continuing their lazy way across the horizon, the grass that no longer had traces of stone underneath, the sky that twinkled with far-away lights, endless and bottomless around the wide grass pathway winding off into the distance.

Maybe he will add something to this dream, make the cubes more detailed, some gilded edges or something. Maybe a couple of buildings, so they would finally have something to explore instead of standing around, to show off to Immo when he’s back to being himself.

Maybe. When he was sure it wouldn’t collapse so easily.

* * *

Dox awoke to a room full of people, hectically trying to move dream chairs into some sensible shape to fit into the lab, checking resources, hooking up extra equipment and… was Laby throwing paper balls at people?

Fuck, he missed these guys.

He opened his mouth to announce himself, but found his throat dry as a desert. He didn’t want to unhook himself from the ADSSU, no point since they’d be going back in in just a few moments, so he just knocked on the armrest with his free hand.

It grabbed Centurion’s attention, who grinned widely.

“Long time no see, Dox,” he greeted. His smile fell somewhat at Dox’s prolonged silence, but he understood once he nodded his head towards the movable trolley housing plethora of extra needles, IV tubes, painkillers, and, most importantly, bottled water on the bottom.

He handed Dox one of those, and Dox gratefully took it, gulping down no less than half of it in one go. “Fuck,” he croaked, “That’s a little better. Thanks, Centurion.”

“Anytime. Want us to lower your dosage?”

“No, I’ll get booted if my levels drop even a little. We’ll be going in soon anyways, right?”

“Yeah, as soon as everyone’s settled in. Glad I brought the extra chairs, haha. Morphy is already in, building up her dreamscape. You could probably join, since you’re doped up. Which, no judgement, but I have to point out— how the fuck are you still alive?”

Dox laughed, head thrown back. Which he instantly regretted, as it made another headache spike in his head. “I’m one tough motherfucker to kill,” he said, squeezing his eyes closed and feeling like the polar opposite of what he had just said. One of these days, a headache would do him in. His tombstone would read ‘Died due to a head cave-in. RIP’. What a way to go.

Centurion placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed for a second before upping the IV and plugging his cables into the mainframe of the ADSSU. “Keep it that way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the lovely illustration is done by @declawedcat on twitter/tumblr. love u babe


	4. the drop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for multiple character deaths as a plot device. rating has been adjusted to M  
> edit 9/8/20; added an illustration by the lovely @declawedcat on twit, please do check it out!

It was almost surreal to see how little has changed over the last couple years. Herrsch felt like he was back at the testing facility, with a rookie research assistant reading off the summary of a test while technicians hooked them up to the prototype ADSSU, which used to be no less than three times the size of their current one, even with Centurion’s add-ons. Their homebrew machine, Dox’s baby, was even smaller than the commercial ones, though not by much.

He watched the team, mentally shaking his head as he refused to call it Laby’s title, and found he could predict what everyone would do.

Iblis still made Anular put her IV in, scoffing off Shakti’s offer; he put in his own moments later, and made sure Shakti turned them on at the same time. Apparently, some undesirable problems still arose if they didn’t enter at the same time. Queen let Shakti do hers, pointedly looking up at her face instead of at her arm. Morphy and Dox were already under. Nova opted to have his needle further up the arm, his elbow looking all shades of fucked since he couldn’t alternate arms. Sariel battled with hers only for a moment before handing it off to Shakti, and so did Twilight. Laby swallowed a sleeping pill instead — Shakti would hook her up after she passed out, which still seemed ways off, with how she energetically explained to Prime some plot of a new show she had started watching. Prime herself looked almost gone, already hooked up with the drugs dripping into her bloodstream.

It was hard to believe it had been three whole years since the DDTP disbanded, deeming the research enough for commercial usage of the ADSSU. He could see this same scene unfolding in his memories, with the addition of a few faceless, always-rotating personnel. 

Finally, when everyone’s eyes closed and even Laby dozed off, Shakti hooked him up as well, leaving the girl in Centurion’s care, obviously pleased with the numbers that the numerous screens were displaying. “Good luck in there,” she told him, with a smile unbefitting someone who had just inserted alarmingly large needles into at least five people. 

It almost always surprised him how quickly he could feel the somnicin act, his vision swimming with black spots until he couldn’t hold his eyes open anymore.

“Thank you.”

* * *

Morphy had gone all-out with this dream. Sure, it might’ve been made for a dream exposition, for art-crazed rich people to stroll through, but the care put into every detail was impeccable. It made the dream feel dazzling, like stepping into a fairytale.

They stood atop a circular platform, the roof of a spire, with stained glass beneath their soles, polished and shining and casting an array of rainbow lights onto the apparent greenhouse that was housed inside the spire itself, only the top of the tree that wound throughout the whole spire through the holes in the floors. The only thing that didn’t feel like it belonged was a tall golden stand with a tapestry hanging off of it, placed in the middle of the roof. It read ‘Welcome to Layer one!’ in flowing cursive. There was a gold-gilded staircase winding around the tower, and when Nisha looked over the edge of the roof, leaning onto the railing with all its carved decor, she could barely make out the ground beneath them.

‘It’s like a tower floating in the clouds,’ Laby chimed in her head, her insistence making Nisha lean further, despite the unease in her stomach.

‘It is beautiful,’ Nisha acquiesced, finally pushing herself off from the edge and back to the middle of the platform where everyone was gathered, now that Herrsch, too, joined them.

‘We should explore!’

‘Later, Laby. We can ask Morphy to give us a tour.’

Morphy’s dream hadn’t stopped at just this tower — there were multitudes of them all around, sticking through the hazy fog like columns of faintly shimmering glass, marble, silver and gold. And it had affected them as well. Nisha found herself in a gown-like dress, twined with golden thread through layers of sheer lace and tulle, the most extravagant thing she had ever worn, even in a dream.

Herrsch donned a midnight-blue coat with tailcoats hair’s breadth from touching the floor, so much golden thread everywhere he looked like he spilled a tub of glitter on himself. Everyone else seemed to be in the same boat, looking ready for a gala instead of a deep dive into the dreams.

“Conwell, you will stay here with Morphy. Be ready to boot anyone if you hear the hint,” he said, “Nova, we’ll go recon layer two. Laby,” he turned to her and corrected himself, “or, Nisha, you’re coming with us. Dox, check in in ten. Fifteen maximum.”

Dox pulled out his phone from the pocket of his blindingly white pants, lips moving the barest amount as he started counting to circumvent the messy flow of time. Nisha nodded, turning away just in time for Herrsch to pull out a handgun from the inside pocket of his coat. 

‘Laby, close your eyes,’ she instructed. She liked to believe Laby listened, even though she had no way of checking. She walked over to the railing. ‘Keep them closed, okay? Can you tell me what happened after Roy and Sarah kissed in the last episode? I fell asleep, I didn’t see.’

There was a moment of hesitation, but then Laby started a tirade, words gushing out like they had been held back by a dam until just then. ‘Roy fel bad, so he made them both go home, but they left all their friends in the cabin, and they were looking for them, and Roy wouldn’t answer their calls because he wanted to talk it out so he turned his phone off, but Sarah thought there wasn’t really anything to talk about—’

Nisha took a breath and hopped over the railing just as the first shot rang out. ‘What happened then, Laby? Keep your eyes closed.’

‘T-they ended up talking, because Roy started crying, and he… thought Sarah only kissed him because she felt pressured to, and he didn’t want—’

The wind howled around her as she fell, passing window after window, greenery blurring behind the glass. For a moment, she felt weightless, arms spread and catching the air as it passed her, and then the second shot rang out and she hit the ground.

* * *

Nova awoke with a grunt, raising a hand to rub at the crust in his eyes. The dream he had was already fading from his memory, even though he was sure it had been vivid.

He threw the covers off of himself and sat up, back popping loudly as he did. His room was dark, maybe it was too early to wake up, maybe he still had time to go back to sleep. A cursory look over to the bedside table and the alarm clock on it told him it was only 25:90. He still had time, then.

He entertained the thought of grabbing a glass of water, but finally decided against it and just rolled back onto the covers.

“No, it’s time to get up, come on,” Herrsch said, making him grunt again. He rolled over to crack an eye in his general direction, finding him in the middle of the room, another unmade bed just behind him.

“But it’s just twenty-six o’clock,” he grumbled.

Herrsch cocked an eyebrow. “Mind telling me what exactly is wrong with what you just said? I’ll wait.”

Muttering under his breath, Nova sat up again. The clock still read 25:90, he wasn’t sure what Herrsch’s deal was. “I know how to read clocks, you know.”

“Yes, as I’m aware.” The sarcasm in the air could be cut with a butter knife. “Anyway, you have a bug on your hand.”

With a frown and, frankly, confused about what a bug had to do with clocks, Nova half-hearted swatted at the back of his hand. “Look—“

“No, no, the other hand. Can’t you see it?”

Nova looked down at his other hand, finding no bug on the synthetic casing. He turned towards Herrsch to give him an earful about dodging the subject, but then he did a double take and looked down again.

The soft mechanical sounds that filled the air as he flexed his fingers were the only sounds in the room for a few moments. Then he sighed, shoulders slumping.

“Can’t believe it happened again,” he said.

Herrsch shook his head. “It’s only natural, don’t beat yourself up over it. Come on, Immo is here, I can feel him.”

“Ah yes, you and your human mementos. Wish I could know it was a dream just because someone was in it with me.”

“It’s not just anyone.“

“Might as well be, since you never dream without one of them.”

Herrsch could feel heat rushing up his cheeks, so he turned away. He was sure the dimness of the room would hide them, but he didn’t want to risk anything. He didn’t offer a reply to Nova’s remark. “I sent Nisha to anchor layer three. Dox will be here... soon.”

Coordinating such a large group was bound to be messy, but even Nova had to admit they had some dangerously well-equipped dreamers for the task. Dox in particular.

“Let’s recon, then.”


	5. the switch

“Five hundred seventy-nine. Five hundred eighty. Five hundred eighty-one.”

Iblis watched as Dox mumbled to himself. The three times she had peered at his phone, the clock on it said something completely different. She never understood the flow of time in dreams, because it didn’t usually  _ matter _ . The repetitive words were already becoming ear-grating, but she limited herself to just a few huffs and puffs, opting instead to focus on anything that wasn’t him.

For all the glamor of Morphy’s dream, it lacked substance. It was nice to look at, sure, but there wasn’t anything in it. No people, nothing to do _ but _ look.

She didn’t get the point of dream expos. Why would you pay money to see a dream someone else had made when you could make something actually fun yourself? Hers and Anular’s dreams were always crafted so they could have  _ fun _ , because that’s what dreams were meant for.

“Five hundred ninety-nine. Six hundred.”

Dox shoved his phone into his pocket and rolled his shoulders. “Get ready, everyone, I’m going to hop down and check on our recon team.”

She kept her eyes on Dox’s child-like body, because she knew Anular found the way Dox hopped interesting, and he was watching. Dox flexed his fingers and dug them into nothing, except the  _ nothing  _ came loose, air tearing under his digits to reveal an inky dark hole he pulled and pulled on until it was big enough to step through. Which he did, pulling the… air… back up like a tent flap.

And just like that, he was gone, the hole fizzing with faint luster until it repaired itself, no trace left.

She turned to Morphy, a question at the tip of her tongue that Anular didn’t have an answer for. “Does that destabilize the dream?”

"No, not really. If it's stable, it'll fix itself. If he kept doing it too much, or made a big one, and I mean big as in… big, then, yeah."

"That's good."

They were never shown the results of their dream testing, not that she'd care to read through the technical jargon. But she knew they've done a lot of tests with Dox's layer hopping, and some of those had ended… 

Well, they've ended.

Anular tapped at the edge of her consciousness, and she let him take over, switching places with him. It was a subtle nod to tell her to stop thinking about it.

* * *

The next portal Dox opened lead to layer two, and the first thing he noted when he stepped foot in it was 'Fuck, it is him. He's here, it's  _ his  _ dream.'

Realistically, he could've done recon himself, and it would've taken a fraction of the time, especially considering he knew he was in Immo's dream within the second. But the long seconds — all six hundred of them — spent counting had the side effect of calming him down, and he wouldn't put it past Herrsch for that to be part of his plan. The plan that made sense on paper (or whiteboard), but would definitely go south at some point. That's why he had been thinking of back-up options the whole time he was counting. 

If it were just him, he could boot Immo back up to layer one and go there before the anchor fell apart. But having this many people on the mission both made it safer and harder. He couldn't do that anymore, because he couldn't risk getting Herrsch or Nova stuck, or dropped deeper, even with Nisha anchoring the layer beneath. There was always the risk of skipping over layer three altogether. But at least any layer was more stable with this many skilled dreamers.

He looked around at Immo's dream. One he had seen many a time by now; a castle, old yet well-kept, and its many winding hallways that would always lead to the courtyard, no matter which turn you took. 

So, as always, Dox headed down some stairs, passed some hallways, feet dragging over the plush carpets, and, as expected, wound up in the courtyard, sounds assaulting him as soon as he passed the oversized wooden gate, like crossing an invisible barrier.

Immo was sitting on one of the benches rounding the central area, now filled with training equipment, dummies and weapon stands systematically placed to allow space to use them. He had a large sword in his lap, hand holding a rag and polishing the blade to a shine. He wasn’t looking down at it, however, and Dox would’ve been worried about him cutting himself, if he didn’t notice who he was talking to.

It was him.

Dox ducked back into the corridor before Immo or any of the other shades could see him. Well, this complicated things. Normal, random shades he wouldn’t have to worry about, but if Immo saw him together with the shade, it would spell a disaster.

He hid behind one of the statues lined up along the hall, even tearing himself a small hole to disappear into when he saw a shade of Nova passing by, holding a sword of its own.

Or maybe it was really Nova, though Dox couldn’t tell. The dream had messed with his clothes, turning what had been a frankly outlandish suit in Morphy’s dream into an intricate armor, too many clasps to figure out, and a giant muffler around his neck. He knew Herrsch, at least, could tell it was him, so he busied himself with peeking out into the courtyard until he was discovered.

* * *

“Dox has entered layer two as well,” Centurion announced, noting the spike in the reading of his REM cycle. “His activity is too high, though, I’m not liking this.”

Shakti took a look, having been fiddling with Laby’s IV. The girl had enough drugs in her now to knock out a mule.

“Oh, we should probably up the dose on him, it would be a problem if he dropped down to Laby and woke up in the middle of it.”

Centurion shook his head, adjusting the screen more towards Shakti. “We… can’t. He’s doped up well over what he should be already. He’s been dreaming for, well… at the very  _ least  _ nine hours in the last day, in three different instances.”

Shakti made a dejected-sounding noise, reaching out to ruffle Dox’s hair when his face contorted into a scowl. “Let’s hope he doesn’t drop, then.”

* * *

“Dox? Are you the real one? Then again, you  _ are _ hiding.”

Dox peered over the statue’s shoulder, barely tall enough to do so, and nodded. “Took you long enough to find me, jeez.”

Herrsch smiled, leaned down, and to Nova’s most exasperated groan, kissed him. “Really?  _ Really _ ?”

Dox shrugged, pretending his skin wasn’t flushing down to his neck. “Anyway… I did your job in a tenth of the time, want me to grab the others?”

“Mhm. We’re going to work on eliminating the shades so we can work uninterrupted.”

Dox nodded his assent again and then tore another hole into the thin air. “Be back in a jiffy.”

With him gone, Nova pulled out his gun from… the fold of his cloak, apparently. Even his prosthesis had changed with the dream, now much more claw-like than the impersonal silicone casing it was usually. How he didn’t rip his armor to shreds was a mystery Herrsch decided wasn’t worth solving. 

He did, however, hold up a hand, shaking his head. “Incapacitate, don’t kill. Nisha doesn’t know there’s shades, she won’t know it’s not us if they drop down to her.”

Nova took a second to think it over, came to the same conclusion, and put the gun away again. “Let’s start with ourselves then, make it easier.”

They shared a look and turned towards the courtyard. Herrsch’s shade was standing by one of the weapon stands with a notepad, or the parchment equivalent of it, and was taking stock of available equipment. Nova’s, on the other hand, was on the outskirts of the courtyard, barking orders to some soldiers, because let’s not call a kettle a pot when it’s a kettle. Nova could be very loud when he put his mind to it.

“I’ll grab you, you lure me away after,” Nova said, eyes rowing over the small crowd. Everyone seemed, mostly, focused on their task, and Dox’s shade, talking to Immo, was placed in such a perfect spot even though he was the only one facing them; making Immo look away from Herrsch’s shade, and looking away from Nova’s. There couldn't have been a better opportunity.

With a deep breath, Nova straightened out his back and tried to look as intimidating as he could, striding his way straight into the courtyard. A few of the faceless soldiers saluted him, and he nodded their way, hoping it was the right thing to do, and thankfully none of them gave him a second look. He made his way towards Herrsch’s shade, shouldering his way through like a commander would — fuck, he… hoped he  _ was  _ a commander? Whatever, no time to think about it anymore, too late.

“Herrsch,” he said, and the shade looked up from his parchment, quill in hand stopping its scribbling. “I need a second.”

Herrsch’s smile curled up in a smile. “You can have more than a second, Nova,” the shade said, with just a hint of something at the edge of his tone. Oh- _ kay _ . Nova was  _ not  _ about to dissect this one.

“In private,” he pointed towards the gate, turning on his heel. 

“Oh, am I in trouble?” Despite his banter, which Nova was sure wouldn’t leave the real Herrsch’s lips, the shade fell in step with him, obediently following into the tapestry-ridden hallway.

“Well, as a matter of fact,” Nova mumbled, kicking back with his foot and crumpling the shade to the floor before pinning it there. “You are under arrest for treason.”

“Cool it with the one-liners,” Herrsch commented, rolling his eyes. He tagged out, walking out into the courtyard, looking for all like he had never left, down to the piece of parchment he had picked up off the floor after the shade dropped it.

“You know, the real you is much more stern,” Nova told the shade. Because he needed it, a length of rope was conveniently in another sewn-in pocket of his cloak, ready for him to grab when he reached there. 

“Fuck you, I _ am  _ the real me,” the shade grit out, fighting him every step of the way as he tied its hands together behind its back. “Let me go!”

“I see a gag is also in order.”

“Fuck you,” was the last thing the shade was able to tell him before he stuffed a strip of cloth into its mouth, tying it through its hair much tighter than was probably necessary. It wasn’t real, and he had to remind himself of that when Herrsch’s almost-misty eyes glared at him with force of the deepest hate he’d ever seen.

He peered into the courtyard just in time to watch Herrsch reach his own shade and place a hand onto his hip. “Commander Nova.” So he  _ was _ a commander. He was nowhere as familiar with this dream as Herrsch was. “May I borrow you for just a moment? News arrived that requires your attention.”

The shade scoffed, “I am in the middle of something, I can’t just go listen to every little thing, Herrsch.”

“Indeed.” He could feel the exasperation from Herrsch’s voice all the way from where he stood. He absently kicked Herrsch’s shade in the thigh when it tried to fight against the bonds. “However, this is a  _ delicate  _ matter. Privy only to two sets of ears, surely you understand.”

Nova’s shade sighed. “Yes, I do understand. Let us make it quick.”

Herrsch led the shade back towards the gate and Nova flattened his back against the wall, readying himself. He waited until Herrsch passed and turned, gave him a miniscule nod. His prosthesis wound around the shade’s neck the moment it was in reach and pulled it behind the corner, threatening cuts in addition to suffocating, with how pointed some of his joints were.

Herrsch made quick work of tying it up, and Nova’s stomach churned as he looked down at the two of them, bound and gagged on the floor. 

“Never gets less weird to see yourself,” he muttered, and, for once, Herrsch had to agree.

“Let’s hide them before any of the other ones notice.”


	6. the assembly

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for another character death, as well as violence

Waiting was the worst part of any job. Twilight felt uncomfortable in the dress she was given, tripping over the long folds more than a handful of times in her pacing. They’d already done their preparations, five dream chairs set up around the banner Morphy had erected for them. There was nothing to do but wait.

Dox’s reappearance came as a blessing.

“We got visuals on Immo,” he said, not even bothering to step out of his little dream-tear. “Drop down to layer two.”

As expected, he didn’t stick around, disappearing back through the still-open portal. Twilight took her seat in one of the chairs. It took much less time to get everyone situated this time as opposed to the first, and yet she had a worse feeling than in the real world. Morphy hooked IV up to the pastel-colored version of an ADSSU as Conwell stood to the side, almost slipping her gaze, with how well his new, white and gold cloak matched the railing and sky.

"I'm booting if Herrsch gives the signal, just letting you guys know," Morphy said. She hooked up anyone that didn't outright refuse — such as Iblis and Sariel — and sat herself into an elaborate-looking chair off to the side. Twilight was tempted to call it a throne, as it resembled one, and quite gravely at that. "Break a leg. Preferably not any of yours."

She wanted to call her out on saying something like that, and so did Prime, but the drugs took effect instantaneously when there was no need for a blood cycle.

They dropped down.

* * *

Dox reappeared by the courtyard back in layer two, breathing deep of the fresh air. It smelled nice, a hint of whatever greenery grew around them. He enjoyed it, despite knowing it wasn't real.

He knew they'd have to work fast, so he didn't waste any time and made another portal, eyes glued to his shade as he reached into the portal and pulled it through by the scruff of its armor. Immo had stopped talking to it, now more preoccupied with swinging his blade at one of the training dummies.

"W—" Dox smacked a hand over the shade's mouth, shushing it before he drew attention to them.

"Can it," he hissed, pulling it further into the corridor.

He felt like a kid fighting a classmate at recess, the way their short arms fought each other until he, finally, managed to wrestle a length of rope around the shade's forearms, binding them behind it.

"Who the fuck are you!" the shade cried, trying and failing, yet trying more, to break free of the rope.

"Jesus, why can't any of you ever be fucking quiet," Dox muttered, lips upturned in distaste. "I’m what you’re trying to copy. Now, stop moving, or you'll get a bullet through the skull."

The shade went still as a statue. Pulling out his own gun and clicking the safety off seemed to startle it into silence, though not for long.

"What's a bullet?"

Some sound wrenched itself from Dox's throat, something between a groan and a growl, with maybe a hint of self-loathing sprinkled in.

"Fuck’s sake, that's it!" 

His finger squeezed the trigger with enough force to turn white, and his whole body went backwards, soles of his shoes skidding across the polished stonework underfoot. When he regained his balance, his ears were still ringing and the gun was smoking in his grip.

The shade laid on the ground in a pool of viscous red, limp and lifeless. Looking down at it made Dox's stomach flip. If there were butterflies in his stomach when he was excited, now they were nothing but spiders crawling around.

He put the gun back into the pouch at his side.

The shade started breaking apart into shimmery particles, until there was nothing of it left but a bloody stain on the carpet.

It never got any easier to see himself dead.

* * *

Sariel found herself standing in the middle of a throne room. Fiery red and only black tapestries hung from the stained windows around them, the carpet was plush and tall under them, the throne imposing and grand behind them.

She wondered who sat atop that seat in Immo's dream.

She didn't need to wait long to find out.

The engraved door opened with a loud creak, revealing the rest of the red carpet, winding into the distance of the hallway. Between the open wings stood Queen, with a dress long enough to trail behind her, and Shakti at her side with her spear ready.

"Ah, I thought you were all at the training grounds," she said, a smile curling her lips. Sariel didn't have to look over to know the real Queen's lips were pressed into a tight line. "Why have you all gathered here? And where is brother, isn't he—"

Queen's shade trailed off, apparently taking in the whole ensemble before her, herself included.

"Who is that?"

Shakti's shade had pulled her spear, holding it with both hands, ready to strike. Anular was faster. The butt of one of his guns connected with the back of the Queen's head with a sickening crunch.

He wrapped an arm around her throat and had her pulled against his chest in the time it took Shakti to swing at him.

"Lower your weapon," Queen said, pulling her sword from its sheath. It was most curious that she didn't match her shade's visage, instead with a heavy-looking breastplate and tall greaves.

Shakti's brows furrowed and she looked between the real Queen and the fake, biting at her lip.

Finally, she put the spear down, the metallic tip hitting the carpet and cutting a hole in it. She turned a pleading gaze unto the real Queen. "My love, what is happening…? I'm so confused."

Queen hesitated. Sariel wasn't sure what was going on through her head; she couldn't imagine staring down a fake of her own wife since she lacked one of those, but she imagined it was not very pleasant. She stepped up to Shakti and bound her wrists with manacles.

If only reality were like dreams, so they'd always have what they needed at hand. Oh well.

Queen twisted on her heel, refusing to look as Shakti's shade started crying, fat tears staining her cheeks as she demanded to be told what was happening. Prime helped gag her, and then tie up Queen's shade. Though she felt bad about it, she turned to Queen and asked, "Where can we hide them?"

Queen knew Immo's dream, how could she not? She guided them to a door off to the side, connected to the throne room with a narrow, unlit passage. It seemed to be a vault of some sort, or maybe a hidden passage for the royalty to escape if the castle were to fall. She didn't know, and it mattered little. It served them well enough to hide the two bound shades in, far apart and chained to a thin pillar each on the off chance they'd try to help each other.

Sariel flicked her hair behind a shoulder, turning away. Shakti's crying face was starting to get to her as well. "Well then, what now?"

Queen led them out of the vault in silence, the tension in her shoulders obvious to all of them. Twilight was the first one to break the heavy atmosphere.

"I think we should mark ourselves," she said, and when she received blank stares, she elaborated, "Queen is accounted for, but we don't know what other shades Herrsch and the others disposed of. We should do something to let ourselves know we're the real ones, in case… for when we decide to split up."

Sariel nodded. "Seems logical. What do you propose?"

"How about a ribbon? What's a color none of us are wearing?"

As if on cue, they all looked between each other, eyes rowing the armor and cloth draped across each other, until Prime came to a conclusion. "Gold, it seems. Ironic, considering Morphy had put a metric ton of it on us earlier."

"Right. Well, just make yourselves a ribbon and tie it somewhere visible. We can let the boys know when we find them." She turned to Anular with an apologetic grin. "Sorry, Anular."

He only made a small groat in reply. Instead of following the instructions, he had simply turned his face mask golden. Well, if it worked, who were they to tell him not to?

Sariel tied a thick ribbon to her wrist, twisting it into an entirely unnecessary bow. She told herself it was for visibility's sake. Queen tied hers around the tie holding her hair up, Prime simple wrapped it around her waist, and Twilight tied it around one of her ankles.

Now to find the others and, even more importantly, Immo.


	7. the fear

_ Dox’s brain was nothing like Herrsch had expected. He half-awaited an empty realm like his own dream, hollow and dark until they dropped down to the lower layers. _

_ What stood before him was a garden, fields of colorful flowers in neat rows on one side, a greenhouse on the other, and a mansion off in the distance, half-hidden in the fog that clung to everything despite the clear sky above. They stood on a worn dirt path leading up to it, but it curved and wound so much that Herrsch couldn’t make out the actual path past the greenhouse. _

_ “Dox?” he called out, looking around in search of the younger man. _

_ “Nothing much to see, but it’s mine, I guess,” Dox said, from behind him. Herrsch pushed down the urge to startle and jump, and mostly succeeded. “I’m not sure what you think you’ll find.” _

_ “I’ll let you know when I find it.” _

_ Dox shrugged, turning towards a tree that grew at the opposite end of the path from the mansion. It was tall and its branches wide, with leaves white as snow, and it looked highly out of place. _

_ He sat down underneath it, closed his eyes, and that seemed like the end of their conversation, so Herrsch left him to lounge while he started looking around. _

_ There were shades all around, servants and gardeners bustling to and fro, picking flowers and milling around, but no matter how hard Herrsch tried, he couldn’t make out a single face of any of them, and eventually, to save himself a headache, just stopped trying.  _

_ His feet carried him to the greenhouse, air filled with the smell of fresh flowers and moist soil.  _

_ There was another shade, turned away from him and cutting the stems of some blue flowers. When she turned to look at him, her face was clear as day, and strikingly similar to Dox’s. _

_ “Hello, are you a friend of Edward’s?” _

* * *

Coming around the corner, Dox did not expect to come face to face with a barrel of a gun.

Whistling, he drew back and raised his arms, looking past the gun at Nova, who was holding it. He chuckled nervously, eyes wildly searching around for Herrsch, and he marginally relaxed when he spotted him. His shoulders stayed tensed up, and sweat beaded down his forehead, sticking his fringe to the damp skin.

“What a friendly welcome,” he said, hands twitching by his head. He wanted to lower them, but didn’t dare yet. “I got rid of my shade, and the others are on their way, so… you can, um, drop the gun now, Nova.” There was an unspoken  _ please _ at the end of it.

Nova did, and only then did Dox breathe a sigh of relief. “Can’t be sure of anything we haven’t done ourselves. Sorry.”

Dox shook his head. Goddamn, did a barrel of a gun still shake him, it was pathetic. “It’s fine. So what  _ did  _ you do? I only got my shade. And, y’know, called the others. Haven’t run into them yet.”

Nova turned and stalked down the hallway, so Dox and Herrsch fell in step with him. “Got rid of our shades, stashed them in one of the closets. We also happened upon Centurion’s in the hallways, so that one’s done for, too.”

Herrsch reached out and grasped Dox’s hand in his own, thumb running across the back of it in a soothing motion. Dox didn’t say anything, but he appreciated it. “That’s good numbers for just quarter an hour.”

“Could’ve been better,” Herrsch interjected, “But we only really need to get rid of a few more, just the people who are in the dream itself. I doubt the others are going to pose much trouble.”

“We’ll keep an eye out. Queen and Anular will, anyhow.”

They traversed the rest of the way towards the courtyard in silence, but Dox’s brows furrowed when they got there. The courtyard was full of shades, but he honed in on the group lounging on the benches.

“That’s our real guys,” he said, pointing his chin towards them.

Herrsch nodded, but Nova’s lips quirked down, cocking his head to the side just a little bit as he studied them. “How can you be so sure?”

A smile tugged at Dox’s lips. He confidently made his way towards them, shoving his hands into his pockets. The other two followed — however begrudgingly — behind him.

“Queen’s shade only ever wears a gown in this dream,” he said, stopping in front of said woman. “Isn’t that right?”

Queen shrugged, her lips pursed into a tight line; from her side, Twilight shook her head as if to tell him to drop it. “I guess you’re the real one.”

“Sure am!” Dox beamed, jabbing a finger to his chest. 

Sariel lifted her hand, showing off the golden ribbon tied around her wrist. “We came up with a mark to identify the real us. Just put a golden ribbon somewhere, in case some of the shades escape.”

Dox groaned, pointedly looking away from her, but he did tie a ribbon around his neck. It was barely visible under his muffler. “Isn’t it a little dangerous to be out in the open, then?”

Prime pointed over to the shade at one of the dummies, Morphy’s, smacking it repeatedly with her staff. “That one’s left, Nisha’s is… somewhere, and Immo is still over there.” She pointed to the other directed, where he was still polishing his blade. “We got rid of everyone else, except for Centurion, we couldn’t find him.”

“Already dealt with.”

“I take it back, then. Already dealt with.”

“Did you kill any of them?”

“No, they’re all stashed away.”

“Good. We wouldn’t want any surprises down in Nisha’s place. That’s supposed to be a safe spot.” Nova turned to Dox, “Ours are hidden too, what’d you do with yours, Dox?”

He bit his bottom lip.  _ Uh oh _ . “He’s… taken care of. It was a pain in the ass wrestling him… can we… not discuss it, please?”

Anular flickered, and Iblis took his place. “Aww, did you get your ass kicked?” she mocked, but that was apparently the extent of her desire to interact, because right after, Anular flickered back.

Dox bristled, yanking him by his collar. “Now listen here, you little shit! Not everyone has a best friend to take care of their shit,” he hissed.

Anular didn’t flinch, didn’t even bat an eye. “She says you’re missing out, then,” he relayed, unheeding that he was just riling Dox up. “And that you’re a sore loser.”

Dox’s face went beet red, up to his ears, but he let go of Anular, huffing. “I’m kicking her real ass as soon as we’re outta here,” he grumbled.

“Keep it in mind, because we need to focus.”

“Yeah, yeah. What’s the plan, then?”

“The plan is for Sariel and Prime to start screwing with this place,” Nova said, gracefully ignoring the mocking tone save for a scoff.

Queen stood up and wordlessly pulled her sword, stationing herself at one of the courtyard exits. Anular took the hint and disappeared in the direction of one of the towers. Dox wondered if he already had a sniping point scouted out. Twilight took up another exit, and the rest of them dispersed, blending back into the dream’s routine.

Sariel’s touch was obvious immediately, the walls turning a little less stone, a little more brick. Prime was working on the dirt path under them, turning it into a faint asphalt road.

Dox just hoped it’d be familiar enough.

* * *

_ “Dox.” _

_ Dox raised his head, cracking an eye open in his general direction with an inquisitive hum. “Found it yet?” _

_ Herrsch nodded. “As a matter of fact, yeah.” _

_ “Alright, get rid of it then.” _

_ “Dox… You know that’s not how it works. Come on, up you go. You have to do the dirty work yourself.” _

_ With a frown, Dox hauled himself up, dusting his pants of invisible dust. “Whatever you say.” He didn’t say any more, but he did follow Herrsch as he turned towards the greenhouse again. _

_ The shade inside was still cutting flowers, making neat little piles on the wide work table. She was humming a tune, something that had Dox pursing his lips as they stood between lines and lines of potted plants. _

_ “That’s… you can’t be serious, Herrsch,” he said, hands balling into fists by his sides. He was trembling. _

_ “I am,” Herrsch said, grasping his hand. What Dox thought was going to be a nice gesture turned out to be a gun being shoved into his palm. He bit his lip so hard he could taste the fake metal on his fake tongue. _

_ Fake, fake, fake. This was all fake, he knew. _

_ But how could Herrsch expect him to kill his own mother? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos & ♥s to my luv @declawedcat on twit for another amazing illustration!  
> there is another one ive added to chapter 4 as well ♥


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